TL:DR
What is an IPS?
An Investment Policy Statement (IPS) is the legal document that sets the trading guidelines an advisor follows for a client. Advisor teams across Canada use an internal toolkit to create IPS's.
The hypothesis
With a general sense that associates have difficulty finding the right IPS for each client, the initial hypothesis was to move the IPS toolkit from the dashboard into client profiles.
Uncovering the real problem
Through research, I uncovered that moving the toolkit into client profiles would be detrimental to associates, because the IPS is a handoff between people, not a client-level task.
User problem: The IPS tool didn't match how teams actually work, so they built workarounds to create, find, sign and track an IPS.
Business problem: Those workarounds moved a regulated document outside the platform, creating room for error, compliance risk and extra review time.
Solution
Keep regulated IPS work inside the platform by making the right way the easy way.
I proposed and led design improvements across four problem areas that could better align the tool to the needs of associates.
Role
UX Designer
Focus
Chequing account page, product pages.
Timeline
4 months
Platform
Desktop
Client
Royal Bank of Canada
The Process
Understand the IPS workflow
Before changing anything, we wanted to validate the hypothesis of moving the IPS to the client profile by understanding how different teams actually work.
Mapping the current experience
The IPS is a very complicated regulatory workflow. I started by working closely with the PO who was an IPS expert and mapped the entire flow to understand how the tool worked.
End to end flow
Interviews
I ran interview sessions with associates working across the country, across 2 lines of business to understand their workflows in detail.
10 Interviews
Survey
Once understanding workflows, I conducted a survey of 25 advisors and associates to better understand specific pain points and needs
25 responses
The IPS toolkit doesn't match the workflows of advisor teams
Work arounds are created at every step, leading to deregulatory practices and inefficiencies.
A seven-day deadline pushed signatures off-platform.
Duplicate drafts buried the right IPS.
Unknown templates encouraged copy and paste.
Approvals had to be chased by hand.
Research plan
We wanted to validate the initial decision to move the IPS into client profiles understand the workflows of different teams.
Mapping the current experience
The IPS is a very complicated regulatory workflow. I started by working closely with the PO who was an IPS expert and mapped the entire flow to understand how the tool worked.
Qualitative interviews
I then ran ten interview sessions with associates working across the country, across 2 lines of business to understand their workflows in detail.
Survey
Once understanding workflows, I conducted a survey of 25 advisors and associates to better understand specific pain points and needs
The current state
Understanding the journey and pain-points
The design principles that would guide the project
Fit the real handoff.
Design for how work actually moves between people.
Work with what can't change.
Make a regulatory deadline visible and cheap to recover from.
Remove the cause of a workaround, not the workaround.
Something here
Design decisions
Decision 1
The 7-day e-signature expiry forced teams to repeat approvals and pushed users toward non-compliant workarounds.
“The Approval process is very time consuming once timeline expires. I need to send the IPS for compliance approval again and resend to client”
Investment associate
What didn’t work
The 7-day timeline was set by regulation and could not be extended.
7
DAYS
Set by regulation. Can’t be changed.
What I did instead
Make expiry cheap to recover from.
Renewals are duplicated in a finalized, read-only state. With no document changes to approve, the repeated compliance review is safely skipped.
Renew IPS
Renewed as 🔒 read only
The change
Duplicated as ✏️ editable draft
Before
Draft finalized Skipped
Compliance approval Skipped
Sent to client for signature
Challenge 2
A cluttered dashboard and fragmented search made it difficult to find the right legal document. Selecting an outdated IPS—or one belonging to the wrong client—created a compliance risk.
The current state
“Going between the active and history tabs drives me bonkers and makes me want to throw my computer out the window”
Investment Associate
What didn’t work
Moving the IPS into the client profile.
Research showed this would make monitoring statuses across all clients significantly harder for associates.
Search client
→
Open profile
→
Find IPS section
What I did instead
One search, with status filters
Remove the ambiguous Active and History tabs. Keep every IPS in one place, search once, then filter to the status the advisor needs.
The trade-off
Breadth when needed, history where it matters
The cross-client “All” view is limited to one year for performance. Once filtered to a client—the way advisors actually search—every IPS remains available with no time limit.
All clients
Records from the last year
Filtered to one client
Every IPS, no time limit
Challenge 4
“If we have a a draft IPS already completed, it would be nice to be able to attach that instead of copying the draft and having two drafts. Maybe I am looking at the incorrectly...”
Advisor team · Product feedback
⚠️
Before
Finalizing also sends the IPS
To include the IPS in an account-opening package, Advisor A must save it as a draft (to prevent sending). In the package creation flow, B must duplicate the draft, finalize it, and send to the client.
Finalize & send
✅
After
Finalizing and sending are separate
Advisor A can finish the IPS without sending it on its own. Advisor B can then attach that finalized document to the account-opening package without making a copy.
Finalize
Send
📌
The decision
Account opening can attach a finalized IPS, but it can no longer create or copy one. This keeps the handoff intact and prevents unnecessary duplicates.
The tradeoff
Teams that created an IPS inside the package lose that flexibility.
Select a finalized IPS to include
⚖️
The trade-off
Teams that created an IPS inside the package lose that flexibility.
📌
The decision
Account opening can attach a finalized IPS, but it can no longer create or copy one. This keeps the handoff intact and prevents unnecessary duplicates.
Add IPS document
Select a finalized IPS to include
Create new IPS
Removed
Copy from existing IPS
Removed
Attach finalized IPS
✓
⚖️
The trade-off
Teams that created an IPS inside the package lose that flexibility.
The Final Designs
A header that leads with the page, not an offer
Each page looks unique and personable with the introduction of lifestyle imagery. The addition of breadcrumbs orients the user, as well as the page name as the focal point.
Original issue: Redundancy of imagery and text led to confusion and cognitive overload.
Clarity around account fees
An account fees section is shown on every account page, where users can clearly understand the fees structure.
Original issue: Lack of offer/rebate clarity prevented users from opening an account.
The Value Program, explained.
A Value program rebate calculator is included on the page, allowing users to understand exact account fees without leaving the page like before.
Original issue: Lack of offer/rebate clarity prevented users from opening an account.
Personalized content
The product page shows the credits cards eligible for a rebate for that exact account. User no longer have to dig through the terms and conditions to understand account perks.
Original issue: Users want to know how account benefits apply to their specific situation, without having to do additional work up front.
Reflection
The biggest challenges
Working within a project already underway
Challenge: the project was already underway, so I had to work within pages that were designed and almost fully approved, instead of shaping the direction of every page in the flow. It also made buy-in from marketing harder, because my approach created inconsistencies with what had already been designed.
What I did: I proposed zooming out to map the whole flow, and worked to save the overview page even though much of it had already been approved. I defended my design decisions to stakeholders using data from our research.
Vantage was a sensitive topic
Challenge: our line-of-business partners had a strong directive around Vantage, but our research showed something very different about user understanding.
What I did: I kept Vantage featured, as the business required, but changed how it's presented visually and with explainer copy.
What I'd do differently
Get designs in front of users sooner
I spent a lot of time iterating on designs visually without testing them with users. Next time I'd run quick A/B tests before iterating further, which would give me stronger evidence and rationale for stakeholder buy-in.
What I'd do next
I left the team before project delivery to accept a full-time offer with RBC Wealth Management. But if I was still working on the project, this is what I'd do next…
Validate designs through usability testing
I'd go through some of the initial questions we tested with users, and re-test them with the new designs. I'd be most interested in knowing whether users have clarity around pricing, as well as their understanding around Vantage and the Value Program.
